762 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the other side not quote any of the various sayings of Jesus, re- 

 corded in the Gospels, which directly bear on the question — some- 

 times, apparently, in opposite directions ? 



So, if I am asked to call myself an " infidel," I reply, To what 

 doctrine do you ask me to be faithful ? Is it that contained in 

 the Nicene and the Athanasian Creeds ? My firm belief is that 

 the Nazarenes, say of the year 40, headed by James, would have 

 stopped their ears and thought worthy of stoning the audacious 

 man who propounded it to them. Is it contained in the so-called 

 Apostles' Creed ? I am pretty sure that even that would have 

 created a recalcitrant commotion at Pella in the j^ear 70, among 

 the Nazarenes of Jerusalem, who had fled from the soldiers of 

 Titus. And yet if the unadulterated tradition of the teachings of 

 " the Nazarene " were to be found anywhere, it surely should have 

 been amid those not very aged disciples who may have heard 

 them as they were delivered. 



Therefore, however sorry I may be to be unable to demon- 

 strate that, if necessary, I should not be afraid to call myself an 

 " infidel," I can not do it, even to gratify the Bishop of Peterbor- 

 ough and Dr. Wace. And I would appeal to the bishop, whose 

 native sense of humor is not the least marked of his many excel- 

 lent gifts and virtues, whether asking a man to call himself an 

 " infidel " is not rather a droll request. " Infidel " is a term of 

 reproach, which Christians and Mohammedans, in their modesty, 

 agree to apply to those who differ from them. If he had only 

 thought of it. Dr. Wace might have used the term " miscreant," 

 which, with the same etymological signification, has the advan- 

 tage of being still more " unpleasant " to the persons to whom it 

 is applied. But, in the name of all that is Hibernian, I ask the 

 Bishop of Peterborough why should a man be expected to call 

 himself a " miscreant " or an " infidel " ? That St. Patrick " had 

 two birthdays because he was a twin " is a reasonable and intelli- 

 gible utterance beside that of the man who should declare himself 

 to be an infidel on the ground of denying his own belief. It may 

 be logically, if not ethically, defensible that a Christian should 

 call a Mohammedan an infidel, and vice versa; but, on Dr. Wace's 

 principles, both ought to call themselves infidels, because each 

 applies that term to the other. 



Now I am afraid that all the Mohammedan world would agree 

 in reciprocating that appellation to Dr. Wace himself. I once 

 visited the Hazar Mosque, the great university of Mohammedan- 

 ism, in Cairo, in ignorance of the fact that I was unprovided with 

 proper authority. A swarm of angry undergraduates, as I sup- 

 pose I ought to call them, came buzzing about me and my guide ; 

 and, if I had known Arabic, I suspect that "dog of an infidel" 

 would have been by no means the most "unpleasant" of the 



